The Art of Organization
In episode eight of season one, we saw Ereka flustered with unorganized paperwork. She was the Project Manager and her team had just finished selling Trump Ice all day. Carolyn came in to check their status and tally the results and found the team in an array of disheveled papers. Teammate Bill said in an interview, “Ereka had a slight problem with organizing the papers.” That was quite the understatement, the papers were a mess. Ereka became flustered and was blaming Nick for not filling out forms correctly to get the sales approved. The team had worked hard, but the paperwork was a disaster and Ereka was seemed as disorganized as the pile on the floor. Bill continued in an interview, “Ereka was extremely flustered, making excuses for why we didn’t have our papers in order. Just panicing, and she did it in front of Carolyn, which was not a smooth move.”
Ereka is not alone when it comes to being flustered because of disorganization. When things are not in order, it becomes easier to be frazzled. In the boardroom, Nick said Ereka should be fired because a leader should never look frazzled in front of the troops. This was a good point, and George commented that Ereka blew it, and that she couldn’t control her emotions. Being organized may not have saved Ereka from being fired that week, but it sure could have helped.
Another example regarding organization came with the first episode of season two. During the boardroom, Kevin was asked his opinions on the task and leadership of Pam. Kevin stated that the team needed a plan and needed organization. He believed the lack of planning and organization was the cause of the team’s loss.
In the second episode of season two, organization, or lack of
organization, became an issue again. After
their loss,
During season three, the teams tackled organization head on with a task that involved creating a new product to make office life easier by cleaning up clutter for the world’s leading seller of office products, Staples. The team with the best new product, as judged by the Staples executives would win episode thirteen’s task. Craig, Tana, and Kendra were the remaining members of Magna, and their product, The Desk Apprentice, won hands down. The rotating organizer went on sale via the internet during the episode, and sold more than 1,000 units in the first fifteen minutes. Staples sold out of the new Staples Desk Apprentice and had to post a six to eight week waiting period before they would have them in stock again. The Desk Apprentice was the selling on Ebay for more than the original retail price. Organization is important for everyone.
Time and time again, organization became an issue for the teams on The Apprentice. In real life, outside of reality shows, organization is also a critical component of success. Organizational traits and skills that would have helped the teams succeed at Donald Trump’s tasks will also help accomplish personal and professional goals of all kinds. It behooves anyone that is not organized to learn some strategies and improve in this area.
Organization is not an end to itself, but rather a means to get you where you want to go. Being organized allows you to achieve your goals through skillful management of time, paper and people. Specific organizational methods will largely be tailored to each individual and their needs. This section will address various principles and techniques to better organize your business and life.
De-junk to Organize
One of the first steps toward an organized business, office, home, and life is to get rid of the junk that is cluttering up everything. Clutter and junk get in the way of achievement and inspiration. Junk inhibits, and many times prohibits, productivity. It steals your time, and reduces efficiency. Clutter makes everything take longer and makes easy tasks harder. Many people spend more time looking for something because of their cluttered junk filled lives than it takes to perform the task once the item is found. Almost everyone has pack rat inclinations, but some people have offices, automobiles, homes, garages and storage areas that are so full, so cluttered, and so disorganized that it is a wonder they get anything done at all. If you truly want to be productive and reach your highest potential, get organized. And organization starts with getting rid of junk. Cleaning and dejunking expert Don Aslett was asked on a TV talk show, “Why dejunk?” His answer appeared in Lose 200 Lbs. This Weekend: It’s Time To Declutter Your Life!, “to eliminate mess and disorganization from your life.” In the book, he goes on, “For space, to save time and money, to create a more pleasant environment for ourselves, to cut waste, help care for our planet better, to improve appearance, health, and safety, to be treated better, and for the ‘carryover’ into all the other areas of our lives.” But the one reason that Aslett determined everyone should unclutter their lives was, “You dejunk your place and yourself to feel better.” Aslett is right, you will feel better once you have dejunked and are organized. You will also save time and money, be more efficient, be more productive, and be on your way to being an organized executive and leader that clutter and junk may be preventing. Now that we are ready to start dejunking and unclutter our lives, let’s look at a few dejunking tips.
Dejunking Paper
We are inundated with paper daily. Magazines, books, papers, brochures, newsletters, catalogs, flyers, advertisements, solicitations, and mail by the truckloads pile up begging for our attention. Many of these items were not asked for, they just showed up. But now something has to be done with them. Most of the reading material that comes into our lives will become clutter if not handled efficiently and effectively. You must control it, or it will take over and slowly drain the very life out of your productivity. Do not procrastinate when it comes to mail and paper in your life.
There are only a few options for each piece of paper that you encounter:
1. You must act on it. Pay a bill, reply to a letter or invitation, make a phone call, etc. Either do it now, or schedule a time that you will do it in the future. Don’t waste time by putting it off and looking at the same piece of paper over and over again while thinking, “I need to get to that soon.” Don’t let an invoice or bill sit until it is past due. If something needs acted upon, act!
2. You want to read it for
its information. Be honest here
though, are you really going to read it? If
you have a stack of
3.
It needs to be filed for future reference.
This is another area you must be honest with.
Many people file things never to be looked upon again.
Just because it is filed in alphabetical order does not mean it is not
junk. Make sure the things you file
are things that need to be saved, and things that you cannot easily get
someplace else. Why take up your
space for something you might need once a year, when it is easily found on the
Internet or another convenient location. In
addition, every once in a while, you must go back into your files and throw out
the clutter and things that no are no longer needed.
Dejunk The Office
A cluttered office is not a productive office.
When the elegant unwieldy phone takes more time to get to and wrestle
with than the phone calls made on it, or when it takes more time to remove an
envelope from the special holder than it did to draft the letter you are
mailing, or when your fancy thing-a-ma-jig breaks down or creates a mess in your
office, production is impaired. Function
should be at the top of the list when it comes to arranging accessories and
furnishing an office. A simple
elegant office with minimal ornamentation that screams of productivity and
function will enable you to reach new heights and outshine all others in
performance.
Dejunk Your Mind
Your office, house, and garage are not the only things to dejunk. One key to organization is to dejunk your mind. How many times have you frantically tried to remember a dozen different things while trying to accomplish a dozen more? In the ever increasing fast paced world we live in, it is imperative that we do not let the stresses of everyday living fill our minds to the point that we become frazzled, frayed, and forgetful.
The good news is that the act of becoming more organized will help with the dejunking of your mind and harried thoughts. The more you dejunk, and the more organized you become with the external things in your life, the less clutter you will have filling your mind. After making space, you will be able to relax and breathe once in a while. Do not worry about things that you have no control over. Those things are clutter of the mind. Do not engage in trivial gossip regarding others. Those thoughts and conversations are clutter of the mind. Do not engage in thoughts and self-talk that is defeating and negative toward yourself. Those thoughts are clutter of the mind. Dejunk your mind and make room for success. Dejunk your life and become organized and you will be on your way.
Handling Paper
Mismanaging paper can be crippling. Disorganized paper can lead to information lost, opportunities missed, tasks undone, and decisions unmade. The management of paper is not just being neat. The person who clears off the desk at the end of each day by sweeping paper into folders, drawers, or hidden file rooms will encounter the same problems as listed above. It is not just a neatness or sloppiness issue. The issue is decision making and processing. You must be able to determine the appropriate destination for each piece of paper and channel it to that appropriate place. Under the De-junking section, we looked at three of the most common things we could do with each piece of paper: Act on it, read it, or file it for future reference. Because of paper’s importance and the fact that it is an area that many people have problems in organization, this section will further delve into the art of organizing paper.
Stephanie Winston, a preeminent specialist in the field of organizing, presents a simple acronym for handling paper in her excellent book The Organized Executive. TRAF, as in your paper traffic, stands for toss, refer, act, and file. These are four of the 4 ½ things Winston teaches to do with paper, the half being read. Each paper that comes to your desk or house should be acted upon. You can do one of these four things to each piece of paper.
The first is toss. Each of us receive more trash daily than any ten people need. Throw out the trash and junk mail that inundates you daily. Eliminate some of this by asking to be removed from mailing lists. If the information is easily accessible elsewhere, do you really need it? The more you throw into the wastebasket immediately, the less clutter and disorganization will be present.
Next is refer. Delegate paperwork when possible. If you have a secretary or staff person that can handle paper for you, take advantage so that your time is free from your important goals. Some paper that has little relevance to you may be just what a friend or colleague has been looking for. Forward it on immediately, don’t set it aside to get to them later. You will find yourself forwarding some people in your organization quite a number of things, so it may help to set up a specific folder with their name on it. As soon as you decide the paper will go to them, put it in the folder. Just be certain that folders are being looked at by recipients and you yourself should review folders to keep them from building up with outdated and unwanted papers.
Third comes act. Just as stated above, don’t waste time by putting it off and looking at the same piece of paper over and over again while thinking, “I need to get to that soon.” You must act on them, and that means making decisions. Usually it is not acting on the paper that is difficult, but deciding what action to take. Place all papers that require action on your part in one place. This can be an action folder or box or a pre -designated spot on your desk. Then systematically act on them to keep the pile from becoming unmanageable. Decide what must be done, and then do it.
Winston’s fourth alternative is file. You can set up a “to file” folder or box and place papers there during your initial look at each paper. If you know immediately where to file it or what file heading to place on it then do it. If not, assign this later during your “filing” time or delegate your filing to someone else. Mark the date that the item will outlive its usefulness if known, so it can be discarded at that time.
The last thing you can do is read. Winston calls this the half because some things will be saved to read at a later time. Short articles can be read as you are sorting your incoming paper, just as you sort everything else. Lengthy reports, articles, trade journals and other publications can be placed at a designated spot for reading. Make sure you don’t let this pile accumulate to where you will never catch up. Evaluate the publications you receive and if there are those you do not find genuinely useful, interesting, or absorbing, discontinue them. Learn to read expeditiously. Skim articles first to see if there is anything worth spending more time on. Do not let newspapers pile up. Will you really ever get to the stack of Wall Street Journals in the corner? If you ever do get to them, will the information still be current? You will be better off skimming each issue daily and pulling out those things that are important to you than saving countless issues that just clutter space and make you feel guilty each day you do not get to them. There is far too much for you to read. You must be selective. You can also learn to skim things to take in more as well as learning to read faster through a speed reading course. Recognize that some things need to be read slowly, but others can be read quickly or skimmed with the same results. Another strategy is to keep reading material on hand for those situations where you have to wait for something. You will find that you can squeeze in an extra article or report daily in many common waiting situations.
TRAF all papers that come into your home or office. Reduce paper be getting off mailing lists. Discontinue subscriptions that are no longer useful. Learn to read expeditiously. And most importantly, make decisions and act.
Without a doubt, being organized increases productivity and one’s ability to make things happen. If you want to reach your full potential and climb the pinnacle of success, de-junk and organize your life.
Trump Time Out –
Get Organized
“If I see that there is a lack of organization, it drives me crazy.
Because, ultimately, lack of organization is lack of leadership, and you
cannot succeed with a lack of leadership.”
- Donald Trump from The Apprentice, season two, episode two.
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